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Another Foundation Lost due to Waterproofing Company

jar546

jar546

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Last year we had a $100,000 foundation loss due to a waterproofing contractor that removed the edges of the interior slab to put in one of their systems. It was a CMU system and 54' of wall pushed in due to the vibration of the constant jack-hammering and the loss of the lateral restraint at the slab. The houses where very close so it had to be hand dug, hence the cost factor which included interior repairs as well.

Today, it happened again, this time with a Superior Wall system. In both cases, no permits were pulled. Do you guys make waterproofing contractors pull permits? We do and they did not. It always involves structural and electrical.

Here is part of the aftermath.

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Ouch. I generally think superior walls is a good system, but it really needs the floor slab intact! Is that a section of top plate askew in pic#3?

There are a several different "dry basement" operators around here. I would require a permit for any system that removes a slab or portions thereof, installs new drainage & pump, or some similar proposal. One system drills down through outside soil and injects a bentonite slurry to seal from the outside, maybe no permit for that one. The operators can work fast and be finished before they are noticed, getting a permit application is uphill usually.

Not to tar them all, but I've seen more failures than successes of these setups.
 
It is a shame I can't see your images. We have a lot of water proofing here and no permits have ever been pulled.
 
Superior walls are unique because they sit on a gravel footer. They are very vulnerable to lateral forces until they are stabilized top and bottom. The manufacturer only allows machinery to be driven perpendicular to the wall during backfill and all interior pipes etc. That are parallel to the wall in the slab must be 4' min. away from the wall. Obviously they should not be altered because the "system" requires all of its elements to work. We do not require permits for waterproofing but we should.
 
So the lesson here is not to the inspectors / officials who get to enforce the Worst Possible Job as standard 1 but to the designer / installer (contractors / craftspersons are Rare) to provide subdrain systems from day 1 as the right thing rather than lets wait ans see what happens when we dig into soil and create a nice hole full o fluff that we can never compact to denser than it used to be so we wont ATTRACT water to a place we suspect it never was?

A Plan has never left mu office without subdrains / french drains indicated

My drain systems are also detailed to allow simple conversion to Radon Abatement Systems
 
Installation companies wrong doing here IMO.

I have done a few Superior walls foundations, the floor system, yet alone the sub gravel should never be removed once back filled.

As to proper drainage, none of us know what was done pre-wall installation.

When I built my brothers home with superior walls, we dug the base placed 4" gravel, set in a complete 4" pipe floor system drain under the entire floor area, added the additional gravel base to give 12" plus as per superior walls.

Drained to the required holding tanks, (water discharge plan) then added another set of 6" drains @ 24" below grade, roof leaders also with discharge tank.

We did this in August, never hit an once of water.

Heavy rains came, water table went above normal, basement flooded water pushed on floor, floor cracked and let the water in.

Anyway point being, the floor system is part of the superior walls structure, along with the sub gravel. To remove those items a permit was required.

I will assume the water proofing contractor just didn't know that, but does now.
 
I have issued a permit for a foundation repair because of the type of system being used, a screw type. I wanted to see the system, verify the footing drains were installed, attached, and that gravel was used over the drain tiles before backfill. I did feel I made the contractor dance a jig but I have'nt seen that type of repair.

In general the (foundation repair companies) do not pull permits and can be in and out before you know it!

pc1
 
First you should evaluate the foundation and check the sand property. You can try with great capacity waterproofing products. But the vibrations is the big problem. I think you can make your foundation with cast iron columns. It has a high damping capacity. But you would pay a high cost for it.
 
I would love to see the Superior Wall opinion on this one. As mentioned, Superior is a good system but relies on the other components to be installed properly. I have to wonder what caused the need for such drastic remediation in the first place. I think Superior systems are designed to let the subsurface water drain underneath the structure. On the ones I installed when I was building I put a slope to the soil before I placed the gravel base to allow that drainage. If a turned down slab or footing and stem wall was installed for a walk out that may have stopped that drainage...something I hadn't really thought about. Pretty sure Superior won't approve their own installations without the proper exterior drainage and gravel base but they don't require 3rd party water-proofing since their panels are waterproof and I don't think they address the use of walk-out footings with regard to drainage. Be interesting to know what caused the failure of the drainage (obvious what caused the failure of the wall). I'm definately calling the local Superior rep about this. I see a number of Superior installations and now I'm a little worried about the walk-out footings without interior drainage.
 
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